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Man who killed a fellow prisoner to be executed in US

January 27, 2015

A 54-year-old man who has come within hours of execution three times in recent years is scheduled to die Tuesday evening unless the US Supreme Court intervenes. Warren Lee Hill’s lawyers argue he shouldn’t be executed because he is intellectually disabled. Warren Lee Hill is set to be put to death at 7 pm (0000 GMT, Wednesday) at the state prison in Jackson, Georgia. Different courts have

intervened with temporary reprieves at the last minute on three previous occasions.

State and federal courts have already rejected his filings this time around, and the State Board of Pardons and Paroles – the only entity authorized to commute his sentence to life in prison – denied him clemency Tuesday. Hill has filings pending before the US Supreme Court, which is now the only potential barrier between him and a lethal injection of the drug pentobarbital.

Hill was sentenced to serve life in prison for the 1986 killing of his 18-year-old girlfriend, who was shot 11 times. While serving that sentence, he beat a fellow inmate, Joseph Handspike, to death using a nail-studded board. A jury in 1991 convicted Hill of murder and sentenced him to death.